Gwen’s fingers began to work the lacings free, even as she struggled to keep her mind on the task. The conversation was a welcome distraction. “Well, of course. But I don’t have a wife to leave at home to take care of everything while I go adventuring.”
“The more I think on it, the more questions I have about thatsystem.” Isobelle’s head bowed—in amusement, perhaps, or perhaps to give Gwen more room to work as she pulled free a trailing end that Isobelle had somehow jammed inside her neckline. “Don’t bring it all the way undone, or it’s tricky to put back together again.”
“The system, or the laces?” Gwen huffed a tiny laugh as she finished untangling the ends.
“Both, I guess.” Isobelle shivered, a light, tiny movement, and swallowed audibly again.
Gwen ought to have continued their casual conversation, but that little shiver of Isobelle’s had captured her attention as singularly as a stray spark flying from a hot forge toward a pile of hay. Scarcely daring to acknowledge the experiment to herself, she breathed out again, a soft laugh, stirring the curls of escaped hair at the nape of Isobelle’s neck.
Isobelle shivered again, a light ripple of movement that made her sway, just the tiniest bit, into Gwen’s hands.
Gwen’s thoughts, which had been crowding round her like customers all jostling to be served first, fled. She started where the lacings were already loose at Isobelle’s shoulder blades, and began to pull them out, one at a time, until just the ends were still tucked through the eyelets. Each shift and tug elicited a response from Isobelle’s body, a swaying rhythm that began to feel like a dance as the firelight outside flickered a slow, accompanying tempo.
Gwen laid a hand against Isobelle’s rib cage, and the other girl leaned into her, instantly recognizing the support for what it was. Gwen slipped her fingers beneath the crisscrossing laces, and bit her lip as she registered the warmth of Isobelle’s skin, the thin chemise she wore beneath the dress no more substantial than a cobweb.
The hand at Isobelle’s ribs slid to her waist as Gwen’s fingers—moving entirely without direction from her mind—worked down into the dip at the small of Isobelle’s back.
Isobelle made a soft sound, like a gulp for air, and then said in a nearly inaudible rush, “I, uh, I like your quilt.”
Gwen’s awareness flickered toward the bed in the room, but she refocused her attention on her task before the rush of desperate thoughts could overwhelm her again. Or ask herself why Isobelle might be staring at her bed. “My mother made it for me,” she said, noting with a kind of strange wonder the way Isobelle’s head turned a fraction at the sound of her voice, like a flower seeking the light. “It’s one of my most treasured possessions. I’m glad you like it.”
“I wish I could have met your mother,” Isobelle said softly.
“She would have loved you.” She’d reached the end of the lacings where they sat at the base of Isobelle’s spine. The temptation to let her fingers continue their work was so overwhelming that Gwen had to bite her lip, hard. Instead, she ran her fingertips lightly over the edges of the dress back up to the shoulders, to tug at the fabric and test whether it was loose enough to let Isobelle slip free.
Had she leaned back into Gwen’s fingertips? Gwen could not make her touch any less of a caress than it was—the most she could hope for was that it had not occurred to Isobelle that behind Gwen’s careful movements was a tempest begging to be set loose. That every gentle touch was a deeper impulse restrained and packed carefully away.
“My own mother would be mortified by me, I feel sure,” Isobelle said dryly, with a sigh that made her shoulders rise into Gwen’s hands and fall again.
“Sometimes I think most mortification is just envy in disguise.” Gwen’s voice was low, intimate. “We’re embarrassed by those who are more free than we are because secretly we wish we could be so free, too.”
Gwen’s hand moved again, this time to trail across the back of Isobelle’s shoulder to rest against the ties at the top of Isobelle’s chemise. The firelight outside limned the edges of everything in rose gold, including the curve of her neck, the fine velvet hairs on her skin, each shift and movement of the delicate muscles in her throat as she swallowed.
Isobelle’s head turned a little, her features lit in profile, giving her skin a flushed, heated quality. If only Gwen dared to touch that cheek, the parted lips, and discover how much of that fire was hers, and how much came from the light filtering in through the open shutters.
“Gwen,” Isobelle said, her voice low, a strange note in it cutting straight to Gwen’s core and making her pulse quicken. “I...”
A sudden burst of raucous laughter from outside interrupted her and made them both startle and leap apart, like lovers caught embracing. Distantly, Gwen recognized the voice of Lambton, the potter and farmer who lived on the north edge of the village. He’d be telling one of his raunchy jokes, full of double meanings that the little kids never got but the older ones did.
Gwen turned away, too scattered by the shattering of that moment, the loss of that sight of Isobelle all lit by firelight, dress falling off one shoulder, lips parting to say her name... Gwen cleared her throat roughly, trying to bring herself back to reality.
Don’t do this, Gwen.But the admonishment she’d intended for herself sounded weak, more like a desperate plea than a command.Don’t risk what you have with her. Too much is at stake for you to be so foolish.
“You should be good from there,” she said aloud in a brisk tone, turning back toward the chest to retrieve her own dress.
Isobelle hadn’t moved, and she stood clutching the loosened dress to herself like Aphrodite gathering seafoam around her naked form. “Will you need help with yours?” she asked, her voice carrying a quiver that gave it an uncharacteristically nervous quality.
Gwen grinned a cheerful grin. She might not be getting better at most ladylike endeavors, but she was certainly learning how to copy Isobelle’s public smile. “Olivia was clever and knew I might be needing to make quick changes of clothing, given my many identities in our deception. She’s put the lacings down the side on all my dresses, so I can do it easily by myself.”
Isobelle made a soft “ah” and turned away. Though Gwen kept her eyes averted, she could hear the rustle of fabric as Isobelle pulled the beautiful violet dress off over her head and began wriggling into the plainer, coarser fabric of Gwen’s old gray one.
Gwen ducked her head and got to work on her own cleverly designed laces that she could undo all by herself.
Damn you, Olivia.
Chapter Twenty-Five
What a perfectly normal conversational gambit
